The Stat That Matters Most

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16 Rejoice always. 17 Pray continually. 18 Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen. – Collect for Purity, Book of Common Prayer

Tracking Growth

Church reports are due! School papers are due! Let’s look at your track record to see how you improved your run times this season! It’s hard to talk about metrics (measuring results in order to improve) without sparking a little anxiety. So much of life seems performance-based. We’re always proving that we’re improving. And it’s exhausting!

Yet metrics are useful to help relieve anxiety, too. Sometimes you discover that you’ve actually been doing more, and better than you realized. Tracking how far you’ve come gives you a real idea of where you’re going, even how long it might take to get there. It can take the pressure off of having to achieve all your goals next week to be able to say: “This goal will take a year to work out…”

So, that’s fine for setting goals for an 8-minute mile, but what about spiritual growth? So many people already think that religion is just about proving you’ve got it all together. It’s just a bunch of fakes pretending they’re perfect. Tracking spiritual growth and setting goals for it seems like a real “holier than you” thing to do.

Noticing Growth

John Wesley was a bit obsessive in his own spiritual growth tracking. In a private, coded journal, he went so far as to track how he felt each time he prayed: “as dead, cold, indifferent, attentive, fervent, or zealous.” I’m telling you, the man would have really benefited from a Fitbit.

Wesley believed that religion had a purpose, “to renew our hearts in the image of God, to repair that total loss of righteousness and true holiness which we sustained by the sin of our first parents” (Sermon 44, III.5). But it’s not about proving yourself. Or guilting or shaming you for not being perfect. It’s about opening yourself to God’s healing.  Healing  your wounds. Healing the wounds in the world.

So for Wesley, tracking spiritual growth was a way to better notice God’s patterns of healing in himself and in the world. Noticing God’s renewal and repair of a world full of broken relationships.

Endurance Training

Spiritual discipline is the art of trusting that Christ has already done the work. And it’s partnering with God’s healing processes in the world.  Loving God and loving neighbor, caring for creation. So who doesn’t want completion? Maturity? Fullness? Who doesn’t want connection? A grateful heart?

Above all, this is the work we’re called to, and it’s a work of endurance. Christians believe that Jesus Christ reveals who God really is. His life, death, and resurrection are proof that God is actually for all people (not against us), and that God is at work in all people (no one’s forgotten). And God works so you can work. God loves so you can love.

You see, the infinite, cosmic love of Christ is always renewing and strengthening us to endure when the race feels too long, and the workout too difficult. Taking account of our own practices and discipline is helpful for growth. But at the end of the day, the stat that matters most is Christ’s endurance.

And that, my friends, will carry us all the way to the finish line.

When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves as youth minister at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.